It won’t have escaped readers that the government has had a less than brilliant couple of weeks.

Since coming back to Parliament, our new Prime Minister has lost his majority, 21 MPs, two ministers (one from the cabinet, the other apparently deciding he wanted to spend less time with his family), every vote presented to parliament, and (according to an unconfirmed rumour) his favourite pair of shoes chewed by his new puppy.

And now parliament has shut down for five weeks in anticipation of a Queen’s Speech in late October.

Trying to guess what will happen next is a fool’s game, but we all do it.

The government has been boxed into potentially having to defer Brexit to the end of January. This will be of utter frustration to everyone, for one reason or another.

Behind this action lies a fundamental lack of trust in the Prime Minister, many suggesting he will say one thing but do another.

Importantly, this is not just from those labelled as Remainers - I have had a couple of interesting conversations with those on the hard-Brexit wing of my party.

For my part, I am prepared to trust Boris Johnson that he is sincere in his desire to secure a deal. The EU summit on October 17 is the last chance to get a deal from the EU.

That summit may present a dressed-up version of the thrice-failed Withdrawal Agreement (WA). Or the EU may just say try again with the old WA.

The problem facing the PM is that he could then have come back to present to parliament whatever deal was forthcoming and call our bluff: this deal or no deal.

But now he can’t, after the passing of Hilary Ben’s Act that requires him to seek an extension in the event of a no deal possibility.

To add to the confusion, we can’t even get a general election. Opposition parties have twice refused to ask the country to decide on our elected representatives through a general election. It is extraordinary.

So we are left with a government, 45 short of a working majority, held hostage in government by opposition parties apparently fearful of being tested by an election. It is a mess.

We will get through this one way or another. Parliament goes back in the middle of October, when we will have a Queen’s Speech and a new legislative agenda. It is time to resolve this.